Protection
by goldfish400
Summary: A kinda-sorta Billdip AU where Bill decides to keep Dipper's end of the deal and "help" him. However, Dipper wasn't being specific enough to say he meant with the laptop password so now Bill tries to help him with everyday events. Bill is aged down to 14 to avoid any cases of pedophilia.


"Are you sure you want to sleep down here on the couch?" Mabel asks, and walks over to Dipper who looks as if he's about to pass out. "I'm sure" Dipper responds, heavily relying on Mabel to sit up so he could make eye contact with her. "I don't think I'll be able to make it up the stairs. Tomorrow maybe, but not tonight" he complains, and drops his head onto her shoulder. "Bill nearly destroyed my body trying to get to the Journal" he pats on the Journal he had put back into his vest pocket when he changed out of the reverend costume. Mabel looked over her shoulder at him. "But we defeated him when he landed in the box of fireworks, remember?" she asks, and then demonstrates the explosions with her hands. "I know" Dipper sighed. "But you remember happened last time we thought we 'defeated' him" He adds, using the same hand gestures Bill had used not even a day ago when Dipper said those exact words to him. Well, excluding the part about the explosions, but still. Mabel rolled her eyes, and then slowly stood up when Stan walked into the room. Dipper's head fell onto the cushion and he gasped in pain, but bit down on his lip so it wouldn't come out as a pain induced moan. Stan glanced over at him, but didn't say anything. Mabel walks over to him and says something to him, and then heads up the stairs and closes her bedroom door. Stan approaches Dipper and kneels down next to him. "Be careful kid, I don't want to be held responsible for any accidents you get into because of that journal. I don't know what I'd do if you got hurt on my watch" but before Dipper could respond, Stan stood up, ruffled his hair, flicked the lights off, and headed, up the stairs. When Dipper heard Stan's door close as well, he sat up as slowly as he could, and reached for the black light sitting on the table next to the couch on the other side. Once he's able to reach it, he grabs it and flicks it on. He places it on the seat next to him, and then takes the journal out of his pocket and begins to flip to the last page he was reading. But before he could, a page that seemed twice as bright as all of the other pages combined. He places the bookmark in the page he stopped at, and flipped to the brighter page. He had to blink a few times for his eyes to adjust to all of the light that reflected from the page, and felt as though his heart stopped when he realized what page this was.

Bill's page. The thing that caught Dipper's attention more than anything was that half of the messages where written in a different handwriting, and unlike the author of the book, every time the message was written in a different handwriting, it was signed by someone who called themselves "ELOO". Before he could quickly flip to the back cover to decode the name, the black light flickered and died. The messages disappeared, and the world drained of color. Dipper groaned loudly. The journal started shaking dramatically. He dropped it, and the journal fell to the ground in front of the couch. The image of Bill peeled off of the page and floats up until it's floating just above Dipper. Three or four strikes of blue lightning come from the picture, and with one huge flash of white light, Bill solidifies. Dipper tries to say something but only coughs hardly and grabs onto his chest. Using his other hand, he sits up. Bill floats down to his eye level. "Well, Well, Well, look who it is. How's it going, Pinetree? Mixing up where you sleep at night can't stop me from finding you, you know" he says in a smug voice, and Dipper squints at him. "What do you want, Bill?" he asks, and Bill floats closer to him until their faces are mere inches away from each other. "It's not about what I want; it's about what YOU want" Dipper leans back in discomfort. "What are you getting at?" he asks, and Bill laughs. "It's exactly what it sounds like, kid." He adds, but before Dipper can ask another stupid question, Bill covers Dipper's mouth with his hand. "You see kid, the other day when we made our little deal, I never held up my end of the deal. I like you kid, so I'm gonna make an exception for you and see it through." Dipper smacks Bill's hand away from his face. "What? But you destroyed the laptop!" He shouted, jumping up again but then dropping back down and grabbing his head. "Hey, don't get yourself too worked up. Lemme explain" He says, and then floats backwards. His bowtie turns into a TV screen. Displayed is the two of them making the deal. It turns to fuzz after they shake hands. "So what?" Dipper asks, and Bill laughs. "You never asked for the password, kid. You just asked for help. Since you were never specific about where you needed the help, I'm obliged to help you wherever you need it!" Dipper's face goes pale. "But, I…I..." he thought, and then looked down at his own two hands. "I broke my end of the deal!" he argues, but Bill only laughs again. "Haven't you seen any supernatural movies? Demons always get to hold up their end of the deal!" he says, and Dipper squints. "I don't think that's how it works" Bill makes his cane appear out of thin air. "I don't care!" He exclaims, before floating over to Dipper. "Guess this makes me your bodyguard now, huh Pinetree?" he "smiles", and Dipper finally manages to stand up, heavily relying on the armchair. Bill offers his cane, and Dipper grabs it, scowling under his breath before standing up. "Bodyguard? Don't you mean Guardian Angel?" he questions, and Bill laughs. "That would be cute, but it would also indicate I'm only able to communicate with you when you're sleeping!" He laughs again, but before Dipper could question what he meant, Bill floats over to Dipper and places one hand on his shoulder. At this point he's close enough that the top of his head is leaning against the rim of Dipper's hat, which makes him flustered and uncomfortable. He looks into Dipper's eyes, and without control, Dipper looks up into Bill's. With his other hand, Bill pulls out of thin air a light blue pile of what would be his equivalent to Pixie Dust, and holds it up. "Look here" he says in his deeper voice, and Dipper, his eyes now turning a bright yellow color, looks over at the small pile. Bill blows it into Dipper's face, and Dipper collapses quite literally into Bill's arms. Bill telepathically lifts Dipper's unconscious body and lies it down on the couch.

Dipper woke to the feeling of someone shaking him. "Okay, okay Mabel I'm up." He yawns, sitting up and rubbing his eyes, "Is it morning already?" he asks tiredly, and begins to stretch. "You wish, kid! According to that clock out in the kitchen, it's only been five minutes!" Dipper pops his eyes open. Leaning over him is a taller boy that looks about two years older than him. He has short blond hair, and is wearing a black eye patch over his left eye. He's wearing a yellow and black tuxedo that has a small yellow cape attached to it. He's wearing black jeans, and black and white sneakers. On his face is the biggest grin Dipper had ever seen. He grins even wider when they make eye contact. "Bill?" Dipper asks, and he laughs. "That's right Pinetree, now I'm just like you! I can hang around you and Shooting Star whenever I want now!" he picks up Dipper's hat, and ruffles his hair. Dipper again becomes flustered, and grabs his hat back from him. "But that's impossible!" he blinks a few times to make sure he's still not sleeping. Bill grabs Dipper's shoulder and pulls him close to him. "Nothing's impossible when you can manipulate the mindscape!" he smiles, and snaps. He turns 18. He snaps again. He turns into a toddler. He snaps one more time and returns to his default 14-year old appearance. "Now come on, no more questions; you heard your sister, you need sleep." Dipper opens his mouth to protest, and Bill chimes in. "Don't worry, I'll still be here in the morning" he says, and when Dipper tries to protest again, Bill pushes him over onto the couch. "Get some sleep"

The next morning, Dipper woke to Bill sitting on the edge of the seat on the other side of the room. His legs are crossed, and one of them is slowly swaying his feet back and forth. As soon as Dipper sits up to reach for his hat on the table next to him, Bill jumps up and walks over to him. "So, what do you wanna do first?" he asks, tugging on Dipper's arm to get him to stand up. "You wanna go for a walk in the woods? How's about we go wake up your sister and play a prank on that Robbie kid that flirts with Red? Why don't WE go flirt with her? He tugs on his arm harder. "What about this?" he asks, holding up Journal 3. He drops it. "Haha! Just kidding. I have no clue where the real one is. I conjured this one up before I took my human form. He picks it back up and burns it. "Come on, Pinetree, I'm really bored!" he complains, and tugs so hard on Dipper's arm that he slips. Dipper rubs his eyes. "What, did you eat all of the sugar while I was sleeping?" Bill laughs. "Yes, but that's beside the point! I'm bored." He stands up, and wraps his arm around Dipper's shoulders. "So whaddya want, kid? I can give you anything you want as long as it doesn't have anything to do with getting rid of me o finding anymore secrets about that journal. Dipper looks over at Bill, who's now leaning his head on his shoulder, and sighs. "Fine. Go make me some breakfast. I don't really care what it is as long as there's a lot because SOMEBODY forgot to feed my body yesterday." Dipper complains, and Bill grins very widely. "Food? Got it!" but before Dipper could say what he wanted, Bill ran out into the kitchen and grabbed a bunch of food. Dipper sighs and plops back down on the couch.

Mabel comes running down the stairs not even a minute later. "Dipper!" she yells when she sees him sitting on the couch with his face in his hands. He looks up and waves at her, and she runs over to him and hugs him. "You got a full night's sleep last night! You're looking better already! Guess that means you're moving back to our room tonight" she exclaims gleefully, and then looks out into the direction of the kitchen. "Is that Stan? I thought he was still sleeping. Grunkle Sta-" she shouts, but Dipper covers her mouth. "Shh, Mabel, that's not Stan" She takes his hand and drops it onto his lap. "Hmm? Then who is it?" As if on cue, Bill walks in with a tray full of food. "Hey Pinetree, I wasn't sure what you wanted, so I just made all of your favorites." He walks over to Dipper and places the tray on his lap. He takes a piece of bacon from one of the plates, and sits in between him and Mabel. Dipper silently motions to her, and he looks over at her. "Oh, hey Shooting Star!" he exclaims, and then turns back to Dipper. He points to one bowl. "This is oatmeal, exactly the same way your mom used to make it for you when you were younger." He points at a plate. "Bacon mixed in with a few strips of beef jerky I cooked by mistake." He points to the other plate. "Pancakes, homemade, so you don't have to go back down to that EMBARASSING diner, and, you know, the rest of your favorite breakfast foods." He gestures to everything else on the tray and hands Dipper a spoon and a knife, and Dipper squints when he notices the fork still sitting in Bill's hand. "If you so as much even _think _about poking me in the arm with that I will slap you" Bill pouts and hands him the fork. "You're no fun." Dipper eats a spoonful of oatmeal. "Good. Now go sit somewhere else so I can talk to Mabel" he says, and Bill jumps up and again, grins widely. "Sure thing!" he says, and jumps up. He ruffles Dipper's hat as he walks by, and goes to sit in the same seat he was sitting on when Dipper woke up. Mabel scoots closer to Dipper. "Who is that? And why does he keep calling me 'shooting star'? I don't like that, it reminds me of Bill" she whispers, and Dipper sighs before eating another spoonful. "That's because it IS Bill, Mabel. It's a long story." Mabel grabs him by the shoulder suddenly, which startles him enough to choke on what he was eating. From across he can see Bill standing up, but when Dipper takes a sip of his water and waves to him, he sits back down. "What? Why is he here?" she asks, looking back at Bill. He must think nobody's looking, because he picks up his eye patch and slaps it back against his face. "You saw what he did to your body! You saw what he did to me!" She begins to shake him, and Dipper places his hand on her shoulder to get him to stop. "I have to let him stay. We made a deal yesterday and now he's acting like he has to stick to what he promised me" Mabel squints. "What on earth could he have promised you that he's willing to keep?" she asks, and Dipper looks down at the ground. "I thought I had asked him for the laptop password, but apparently I wasn't being specific enough. So now he's my, and these are his words and mine, 'body guard'". Dipper waves to Bill, and he happily waves back. "So he basically protects you and junk, whenever you need it?" she asks, her eyes starting to beam with happiness. Dipper looks at her and laughs. "It's more like whenever he thinks I need it. Watch this." He places the tray on the floor. "Hey Bill, can you get my tray for me?" he asks, and Bill jumps up. "Sure thing!" he says, and walks over to them and hands Dipper the tray. "Are you almost done? Are you done? Do you want to go do something else?" He asks, and Dipper shakes his head. "I'll come to you when I'm done, okay?" he suggests, and Bill nods happily before heading back over to his seat. Dipper glances over at Mabel and shrugs, which causes her to laugh. "Dipper, do you know what this means?" she asks, and he rolls his eyes. "It means you could get away with anything you wanted!" Dipper glares at her. "Are you saying I should do something illegal?" he asks, and she laughs. "No, of course not! All I'm saying is that you can do everything you couldn't now that he's here! You should appreciate what you've got, Dipper. I know I do. I've got to go. I'm meeting Candy and Grenda at the Diner" She hugs him, and then stands up and walks out the door.

Dipper stands up as slow as he can manage so he doesn't hurt himself any more than he already is. He waves to Bill, who stands up and approaches more slowly than before. "You okay, kid?" he asks, and Dipper shakes his head. He sits back down, and lifts up his shirt. There's a large gash going across his stomach with a small splinter stuck in it. Above it are a bunch of scratches and cuts. Dipper drops his shirt down, and for the first time since last night, Bill gets a clear view of how pale Dipper's face is. The original cuts and scratches he had on his face when he fell asleep are at this point becoming scars, and there's a bunch of bruises and red marks all up his arms. There's dry blood where the forks where stuck in his arm the day before. "Kid?" Bill asks, and Dipper looks over at him. "Please don't tell Mabel" are the only understandable words that escape his mouth.

Bill looks around to make sure nobody else is around, and he snaps his fingers again. He's transformed into a very tall figure wearing a black tuxedo with black pants and matching shoes. A snappy bowtie is stitched across the chest. But when Dipper looks up at his head, he's surprised to find Bill's original head attached to the rest of the body. Bill snaps again, and they enter the mindscape. "Bill? What are you doing?" he asks, and Bill crouches down to his level. "Just wait" he says, and scoops his arms under Dipper's body. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, hey! What are you doing?" He asks, and begins to squirm uncomfortably. Bill only brings Dipper closer to him. "Yeesh kid, relax! I'm healing you!" He says, and holds Dipper out a bit. "Just a bit of warning, this may look weird, but you won't feel a thing." He lifts up Dipper, and then when his eye turns light blue, Dipper tenses, and then begins to panic when he finds himself floating in midair. Bill lifts up Dipper's shirt, and very slightly pokes at the splinter stuck in the gash of Dipper's stomach. It plops out, and the gash begins to close. He drops his shirt, and then grabs both of Dipper's shoulders simultaneously, which fixes both of his arms, and then physically rubs each scratch and scar on Dipper's face. He did the equivalent of smirking when he saw Dipper trying to avoid eye contact while he did so. When he was done the affect wore off, and Dipper dropped into his arms. Bill snapped again, returned to his 14 year old human male form, and returned them to the waking world. Dipper opened his mouth to speak, but closes it back up. "See, kid? I can do a lot more than I lead on to. Let's go for that walk in the woods now. I'm sick of feeling trapped indoors. Dipper looked around nervously, just as Bill had done before, and then leads him out the door towards the forest.

Once they get into forest, Bill took the lead. He curved down so many paths that Dipper was sure they'd never find their way back. A few times they had to stop because Bill swore he saw a deer, and each time he did actually see one Dipper had to stand behind him and physically push him away from it. Bill turns back and pouts at him every time he does, and Dipper just rolls his eyes at him in response. Every time Bill pointed out a pine tree, Dipper would shove him into it. He found humor in this, and it came to a point where he would point to every tree in the area just to watch Dipper try to forcefully push him into it. They had to stop a few times, but then eventually had to go back when Bill began to complain about needing food. Mabel is sitting on the couch watching TV when they get back home. She stands up when Dipper walks into the living room with Bill following closely behind. "Dipper!" she shouts, and runs over to him and hugs him. When they pull away, she stands back. "You're all better! How did you do that? Was it the invisible wizard?" she asks happily, and Dipper shakes his head. "Bill healed me" he says shyly, and Mabel smiles widely. "Really?" she looks back and forth at them. "That's great. Stan's out in the kitchen, so if you don't want him finding Bill, I'd bring him upstairs." She says, and Dipper gives her a thumb's up. "Thanks, Mabel" he whispers, and whether it's out of habit from doing it with Mabel or by not being aware of it at all, he grabs Bill by the hand and brings him upstairs to his room. Mabel notices, and can also tell that Bill noticed too, but is trying not to laugh.

"Okay, listen" Dipper says as he closes the door. "Why are you doing all these things for me?" He asks, and watches as Bill makes his way over to his bed and sits down. Bill looks at him with a confused expression. "I mean, why did you heal me? I thought you hated me. Only yesterday you stole my body and tried to destroy the journal" Bill stands up. "Kid, I don't think you heard me the first time. I _like _you. You're a good kid. I wasn't saying those things to manipulate you into taking your body. The stuff about your sister was, but nothing I said about you was" Dipper steps closer. "What?" he asks, and Bill grins. "It's true; I'm doing all these things for you because I want to. Sure, it was part of the deal we made, but if I wanted to trick you, I would've left your body the way it was. Sure, you broke your end of the deal, but you did my favor first. You're much better that that Gideon kid" he says, and smiles as Dipper looks as if he's trying to think things over. "So everything you've done today was…" he stops mid-sentence. "That's right, kid! Just for you." Bill can see Dipper's trying hard not to smile, but can't hold it back. "Thanks…" he whispers shyly, looking down at his feet. They both jump when they hear a knock on the door. Dipper goes to open the door and finds Mabel waiting there. He blushes in embarrassment, unaware of how much of his and Bill's conversation Mabel had heard. "You guys can come back down now. Stan's on a tour." Dipper looks back at Bill. "I think we're going to stay up here for a bit longer." Bill smiles, and when Dipper looks back at Mabel, she's smiling too. "I'll be in the living room if you need me" she says, and Dipper looks around. He whispers something to her, and she nods and runs down the stairs. "What's gotten into Shooting Star?" Bill asks, standing up, and as if on cue, Mabel reappears with two sodas. She hands them both to Dipper, waves to Bill, and then heads down the stairs. Dipper gestures to the window. "Do you want to go sit on the roof?" He asks, and Bill grins and runs out of the room. Dipper rushes after him.

The sun is barely visible on the horizon when they find a comfortable spot to sit on the roof. Dipper glances down at the soda in his hand. The last person he sat up with on here was Tyrone, and he didn't want the same to happen to Bill. He knew that Bill wouldn't melt like Tyrone did, but he could still fall off and hurt himself. Dipper looked over at him uneasily as his legs dangled over the edge. "I'm flattered about all of this concern, Pine Tree" Bill says suddenly, and Dipper becomes even more uneasy. "What?" he asks, looking up the watch the rest of the sun disappear over the horizon. "Have you forgotten? I can read minds, kid, and I'm picking up a lot of concern for me from you." Dipper sighs. "Well yeah, last time I was up here with someone I really cared for, they…" his voice drifts off, and clicks open the soda. "Nevermind" he says, and begins to drink out of it. When he looks over at Bill, he sees that he's grinning wider than he usually is. He places the soda down next to him. "What?" he asks, and Bill scoots a little closer to him. "Maybe I heard you wrong, but I think you just said you really care about me" He scoots close enough to wrap his arm around his shoulder, but doesn't. Dipper looks up at him, but can't seem to find the right words. Instead he takes off his hat and rests his head on Bill's shoulder and closes his eyes. Bill places his hand on Dipper's shoulder, and closes his eyes as well. When Dipper opens his eyes hours later, the moon is above their heads. He looks to his right and notices Bill leaning on him wearing his hat. Dipper can't tell if he's sleeping, or relaxing. He picks his hat off of Bill's head and places it back on his own. Bill sits up and looks at him, and has a warmer smile on his face then he did before. They both stand up, and climb down the ladder that Wendy had found earlier that summer.

A few days later, Dipper and Bill are casually walking around town looking for things to do. Dipper had bought Bill a copy of his hat from the shop that he was wearing. They had already stopped to eat, but when Bill suggested they went to the mall, Dipper looked as if he were crazy. So instead, they just decided to go for a walk and stop whenever something interesting came up. "Hey Pine Tree, do you want to just head back and sit on the roof again? That was nice" Bill suggested, and Dipper laughed. This was the fourth time he suggested that in the past two hours, but now realizing there wasn't a lot going on today, they turned around. Bill smiled. Bill insisted that Dipper go first when they got there, and Dipper climbed up and waited near the ladder. Bill came up a few minutes later with a tray of food and two sodas. "I made us some food, since we're going to be up here for a while." Bill walked over to the edge of the roof and sat down, and then gestured for Dipper to follow him. He placed the tray on his own lap, and gave Dipper one of the two sodas. Dipper took one of the sandwiches from the tray, and Bill took the other. Bill looked over at Dipper and smiled as he took his hat off to feel the oncoming breeze. He smiled even wider when he picked up a feeling of hesitation from him. "Hey kid, are you still into Red?" he asks, and Dipper blushes. He must've forgotten Bill can read emotions as well as he can read minds. "No, I got over that. She rejected me, but said we could still be friends." Bill smiled. So he was right in assuming Dipper's feeling of hesitation was aimed towards someone else. He moves the tray so he can sit closer to Dipper. "So you're over her?" he asks for confirmation, and can feel Dipper's hesitation slowly transfer into nervousness. He could tell there was something he wasn't telling him. "Yes, I'm 100% over Wendy" he says, beginning to cough. He mouths a few words, but Bill can't make out what they are. "Good, Good." He says, and then smiles. "Are you into anyone else? You seem kind of nervous" He smirks when nervousness becomes fear. Dipper's hands begin to shake. "Y-yes…" he stutters out slowly, and tries to stand up but is too nervous to have the strength to. "Hmmm? Who?" Bill asks, already knowing whom but wanting to hear the name coming from Dipper's mouth. Dipper tries to avoid eye contact with him. He mutters the name under his breath. "I'm sorry; I don't think I caught that" Bill teases, and Dipper turns around. His face is a bright red, and he looks as if he might pass out. "You" he whispers one more time, and closes his eyes. He pops them open when he feels arms wrap around his body. He looks up and notices Bill smiling the warmest he's ever seen anyone smile before. He's blushing too, but not as intensively as Dipper is. Dipper wraps his arms around Bill as well. "I am, too, Pine Tree" he whispers, before kissing the top of Dipper's head. "I am too"


End file.
